worse than we thought – speed of climate change!

The conference at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter, called by Tony Blair to inform world leaders about the urgency of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, was told of a series of new research findings which showed that climate change was speeding up and would be worse than hitherto expected.David Griggs, director of the centre, said the meeting was “an ideal opportunity for the scientific community to identify emission levels, especially of carbon dioxide, at which the Earth’s climate could be thrown into irreversible change.”

Only five years ago the scientists on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were confident that Antarctica and its vast ice sheets were so cold that they would not begin to melt for centuries even if climate changed elsewhere.